The dawn of civilization

[The Grand Nudger]

How this became a manhood contest between us is a mystery....but, for the record, mines bigger and that's the end of the contest.

Looks like the answer to my question was no..no you don't understand that.  You're too busy trying to prove your nonexistent manhood by telling stories about how you so, totally, would too! fight a lion..... that the point completely escaped you.

That isn't how people lived their lives. Your standard of reference, the caveman who fights lions...is a fantasy. Your fantasy, it would have been their nightmare. Hence the reaction to a juvenile cat that would have been about three foot long fully grown. Hence bears becoming a global object of reverence and avoidance.

[Angrboda]

I find this shit funny given how Max has basically run away from any substantive discussion with anyone on this forum. Occasionally he stoops to addressing or making points, but most often it's "agree to disagree" bullshit and an epistemology based on the question, "How can we know anything, really?"

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Then it's good that our civilization exists to cradle you in it's bosom - because you'd be one of the dead ones, and those who depended on you would have starved or been taken in by others.

Again, this complex of yours has absolutely no connection to the realities of stone aged life.  It is a fantasy.  Do you understand that much, at least?  It's okay to fantasize, it's your fantasy, you do you.  Mel Gibson playing william wallace is exactly the sort of fantasy we're discussing..when it comes down to brass tacks.  All that I hope to achieve is to show you that your fantasy is divorced from the object of it's fixation.

Uh huh, surrrrre.

While you're pottying your diaper because you seen a lion, me and the other guys will be busy eating him.  The difference.  You told yourself "I can't", and we went out and whooped his a$$ because we knew it was possible.  As far as the William Wallace thing, you missed the point.  It's not about "fantasy", but rather having purpose.  I'll have my lion story, while you'll try to avoid telling everybody about your dirty diaper from when the lion popped up.  Call it what you will, but I'll stick with option A.  You may prefer B, but I grew out of wearing Huggies decades ago.  Maybe you should try it.  You may actually like it.

All due respect, but anyone who claims that they WOULDN’T shit themselves when confronted with a pride of hungry lions is someone who hasn’t been confronted with a pride of hungry lions.  This strikes as one of those you-don’t-know-til-it-happens type of scenarios.

Boru

[LostLocke]

Despite all that, I still believe men need to be men.  So if the sabertooth tiger or modern day predator, such as a lion shows up, you're not running and screaming, but rather willing to take action to beat the beast senseless.

You don't automatically fight. You do what you need to to live. If it means fighting back, you fight back. If you have a higher chance of surviving by running, then you run.
If you have a higher chance of surviving by running, but choose to fight anyway, that's not bravery, that's stupidity.

[The Grand Nudger]

We only need to refer to the relationships between existing human populations and the remaining apex predators to see how we have always dealt with the issue.

We build our fences taller, our doors thicker, we keep the lights on, we circle up and enlist the help of other predators.  We make the overall human situation so dissuasive to predation that a big cat's sheer ability, for example, to prey on us is moot point.  We're not looking to fight the lions, and there's no evidence that we ever have been.  As far as we can tell, the only significant contact between apex predators and human beings in the neolithic..was with wolves.  Look at em now.  Sleeping in our beds.

LNeolithic people were flower pickers, potters by trade and still knappers by necessity. They liked dogs and hated the woods. They had more children than anyone before them and persisted on an increasingly agrarian diet. They were slight of frame and, as far as we can tell..highly risk averse. The most dangerous thing out there were other people...and an even greater amount of violence than can be attributed to raiding is domestic. Males were more ikly to have non fatal head wounds...females more likely to have scarring on the ribs, radius, and ulna - though they were equally likely to have headwounds (just less likely to have survived them).


Just......like.....us....lol.

[brewer]

For Gae and Max:

[T0 Th3 M4X]

How this became a manhood contest between us is a mystery....but, for the record, mines bigger and that's the end of the contest.

Looks like the answer to my question was no..no you don't understand that.  You're too busy trying to prove your nonexistent manhood by telling stories about how you so, totally, would too! fight a lion..... that the point completely escaped you.

That isn't how people lived their lives.  Your standard of reference, the caveman who fights lions...is a fantasy.  Your fantasy, it would have been their nightmare.  Hence the reaction to a juvenile cat that would have been about three foot long fully grown.  Hence bears becoming a global object of reverence and avoidance.

It's not a manhood contest. I said it was my opinion.  If you choose to live your life differently, then so be it.  It's your choice.  For me though, that type of life is unacceptable.  I would rather go down fighting a lion, then die from eating processed chicken McNuggets from Mcdonald's.  Your opinion, my opinion, and you are certainly entitled to your view.

But that is how people lived their lives, just not everybody.  Some people lived scared and afraid.  Some rightfully so, and some by choice.  The thing is, most of us have a choice, so you can either go out and "be the lion" or go out and "make excuses."  What you believe is "fantasy" is "reality" to others because they make it happen.

[The Grand Nudger]

Empty posturing.  You could hop your silly ass into a lion enclosure at any time....but here you are, eating nuggets instead.

Meanwhile, you're still running away from a simple observation. Cavemen were not the Real Men™ you imagined them to be. The initial misapprehension is understandable, due to how often and for how long they were depicted in that light. The trouble is that it was never true, and has more to do with 18th and 19th century attitudes towards savagery (noble and ignoble) than anything else.

[LostLocke]

Exactly.

We "survived" predation not through our brawn but through our brains. By avoiding fights to begin with, or fighting only when necessary, it allowed us a measure of freedom to advance and become what we are today.
If we want to go back to caveman days, we'd have a massive, HUGELY massive, population drop, and wouldn't have nearly the capabilities we have today. Nature abhors a vacuum, and I can all but guarantee that another species, most likely another primate, would have developed the intelligence we have now, that we no longer would have if we stayed "primitive". We wouldn't be worried about tigers or wolves trying to eat us. We'd be worried about the areas we lived in being cut down, burned down, and uprooted for the use of whatever the dominant species on Earth is, which would not have ever been Homo Sapien.

[T0 Th3 M4X]

Uh huh, surrrrre.

While you're pottying your diaper because you seen a lion, me and the other guys will be busy eating him.  The difference.  You told yourself "I can't", and we went out and whooped his a$$ because we knew it was possible.  As far as the William Wallace thing, you missed the point.  It's not about "fantasy", but rather having purpose.  I'll have my lion story, while you'll try to avoid telling everybody about your dirty diaper from when the lion popped up.  Call it what you will, but I'll stick with option A.  You may prefer B, but I grew out of wearing Huggies decades ago.  Maybe you should try it.  You may actually like it.

All due respect, but anyone who claims that they WOULDN’T shit themselves when confronted with a pride of hungry lions is someone who hasn’t been confronted with a pride of hungry lions.  This strikes as one of those you-don’t-know-til-it-happens type of scenarios.

Boru

Some people do.  When it happens on the fly, you don't always have the opportunity to calculate the odds.  Odds are though that if someone starts running, that's probably going to be target #1 anyway.  My dogs do the same thing with my cats.  If the cat is walking and sleeping next to one of them, no problem.  They can even interact.  As soon as a cat dashes across the house, then it has two hounds on its tail.  Pack hunters even do that when they see a herd and want to single out the weakest.  They force the prey to run, and the weakest runner is the one who gets separated, then either falls trying to keep up, or gets taken down with no chance of protection from the herd.  Besides, not much logic from running from something that can run more than twice your speed and can climb trees, unless there is something nearby that you know you can slip into.  Even then you may be screwed, because it will just wait you out with others of its kind.  At least if you go in as the hunter, you are more than likely prepared.